Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I found a dead bird in the yard this morning. It reminded me that the week before I found a dead rat on the lawn. I get the feeling that the neighbors cat watches LOST. Why else would it be trying to impress me?

The scariest part about picking up a dead animal is NOT the hand you're picking it up with.

It's the hand holding the grocery bag. For one thing you know you'll have a glove on the picking up hand, but not necessarily the bag hand.

Furthermore, once rigor mortis sets in, the bird is frozen in the odd shape he was left in. And that shape does not smoothly go into the plastic bag you are holding with one hand. Even if you're wearing a glove on that hand (which I believe most don't, after all these are times of conservation). Your forearm is totally at risk.

And after disposing of the animal, gloved or not, you still wash both of your hands clear to the elbow.

Well I do anyway.

(I was going to take a picture of it. But I thought it best not to. But I was also able to clear some mushrooms, and pick up Nunu's poop all with the same bag. Talk about "two birds." [That was awful.])

I know what you mean about the stiff, dead animals. Had to pick up a dead squirrel from my front lawn and it felt like it weighed a ton! Ew-wwwww! By the way, my son wants to know if it was the "Hurleybird"!! Awesome pumpkins from your other post,nice to see Josh and Michael there. Peace!

I often have to pick up dead birds and mice from my garden - left by my cat to impress me... Im not impressed though, we had a mouse in the house for two weeks and the cat didnt catch that one..... my trap finally did the work a few days ago.

Rather then use a glove, I take and empty bag and put it on over my hand. (Using the bag as a glove.) I pick up the offending material with the bagged hand. Then I slide my other hand into the bag as well and pull the bag over the offending material until the bag is inside out and completely surrounding the offending material. No extra gloves needed, no danger to forearms... Though I often still wash my hands if the offending material is particularly offensive.